The production of bread and other pastries and dough-based products is a continuing, day-to-day operation. Many breads are, of course, baked in loaf tins or forms, but many other kinds of bread products--as well as other products--are baked flat on a tray or conveyor within an oven, without being confined within a form. Such bread types principally comprise bread which, when finally prepared and sold to the consumer, is quite flat and thin, very often comprising little more than an upper and lower crust. Such breads are particularly popular among people whose origin has been in the Middle East; and are widely produced not only in the Middle East, but in the North American and European markets as well.
In all such cases, it is desirable that the bread should have a substantially circular shape. This not only makes packaging more easy, but provides product that has broader acceptance by the consuming public.
Moreover, it is sometimes desirable to provide other kinds of bread, pastry or dough-based products, having generally circular configuration and being thin, substantially flat disks. Such other products may, for example, by pizza crusts, pie shells and other specialty dough, bread and pastry products.
Especially, however, when large and very expensive equipment is used on a continuing basis for the production of bread such as those generally consumed by persons from or in the Middle East, it is desirable to provide equipment that not only functions properly but is easily serviced and maintained. Moreover, such equipment should not take too much space on the floor of a commercial bakery producing the bread product.
As well, of course, it is always desirable to provide such equipment as spoken of above, as inexpensively as possible.
Very often, particularly in bakeries producing Middle East breads, the preparation and production of the bread comprises mixing the dough with the proper ingredients and preparing it in discrete dough lumps--usually spherical balls--of a specific size and weight. Those dough balls are then passed for a particular period of time through a dough proofer, where they are heated and where the action of the yeast and other constituents within the dough preparation is begun. Thereafter, the lumps or balls of dough are rolled through several sets of rollers so as to become flattened disks, and it is generally the intention that such flattened disks, especially when they are formed from spherical balls of dough, should have generally circular shapes. After the circular disks have been formed, they are then passed to a further proofer, and thereafter to an oven for baking.
Of particular concern is the preparation of the proofed dough to form the flattened disks of generally circular shape. In most cases, the dough is first passed through one or more rollers so as to be rolled to form an ellipse having a particular thickness. That ellipse is permitted to fall onto a moving conveyor belt, by which it is conveyed from the rollers in a first direction. That first conveyor generally extends over a second conveyor which moves at right angles to the first conveyor, and terminates over the second conveyor, so that each rolled ellipse in turn falls from the first conveyor to the second conveyor and moves along the second conveyor in a direction perpendicular to the direction of its first motion and is then introduced to a further set of rollers in a direction such that the axis of rolling the dough is substantially perpendicular to the axis by which the dough had previously been rolled. Thus, a generally circular product is provided from the final set of rollers, because of the fact that an ellipse has been rolled in a direction perpendicular to the major axes of the ellipse.
However, it is evident that such apparatus takes considerable floor space within a bakery. Moreover, the apparatus is such that the flow of dough in the bakery must undergo a 90 degree change of direction in order to be formed with circular shape. Sometimes, it is not convenient that a change of direction of the flow of dough material through the bakery should be accommodated at a particular place, so that very often the working space around the dough flattening rollers becomes quite limited.
Moreover, the use of conveyors and the requisite passage from one conveyor to another of the dough means that the dough is being permitted to cool during the rolling and conveying and handling operations, so that it may be below the temperature at which the best bread product may be baked in the oven. This is, inter alia, because of the fact that a crust may again be formed on the dough.
Still further, the above apparatus as generally found in Middle East bakeries or bakeries producing Middle Eastern types of breads, may be such that the dough is exposed for longer periods of time than absolutely necessary to contaminants which may be in the air.
It is therefore desirable that an apparatus be provided whereby the elliptical shaped dough material after passing one or two sets of rollers should be turned at an angle of 60 to 90 degrees, more or less, so as to pass through yet a further set of rollers where the ellipse is formed into a circular disk of dough material. It is desirable that such apparatus should be as compact as possible, so that the handling time of the dough material within the apparatus is as short as possible, and so that less space within the bakery is occupied by such apparatus.
Still further, it is desirable to provide such apparatus as referred to above, as inexpensively as possible, but where the apparatus is capable of simple maintenance and repair.
Moreover, it is preferable to provide dough shaping apparatus such that the dough being shaped is not generally exposed to the atmosphere. In other words, it is desirable that the dough shaping apparatus should be provided within its own cabinet.
All of the above considerations and features are met by the present invention, which provides an apparatus for shaping lumps of dough to flattened disks, each of which has a substantially circular shape, where the apparatus comprises at least a first pair of rollers which are spaced one from the other, and are substantially cyclindrical driven rollers, having parallel horizontal axes of rotation, and where the width of the nip between that pair of rollers is adjustable. A slideplate is positioned beneath that first-mentioned pair of rollers, and extends downwardly and forwardly from the rearmost of that first pair of rollers, to a position above the rearmost of a second pair of spaced rollers having the same general relationship to each other as the first pair of rollers. A guideway is positioned beneath the rearmost of the second pair of rollers and extends downwardly and forwardly therefrom to a conveyor means.
An opening is provided in the slideplate above the last-mentioned pair of rollers, and a pair of driven conical rollers, one on either side of the slideplate, is provided so that their nip is positioned just slightly forwardly of the opening in the slideplate.
Generally, a second or initial pair of rollers is provided above the first mentioned pair of rollers, and the initial rollers have grooved surfaces for purposes discussed hereafter.
Of course, all of the pairs of rollers are driven towards each other in such a manner that the passage of the dough material as it moves through the respective nips of each succeeding pair of rollers, is downwardly directed.
Clearly, the ellipse of the dough material which passes from the rollers immediately above the conical rollers is caught by the conical rollers and, because of the varying peripheral speed along the surface of the conical rollers, the ellipse of material passing through the nip between the conical rollers is turned on the slideplate through an angle of 60 to 90 degrees, more or less, so that it passes through the final set of rollers in such a manner that it will be formed as a circular flat disk after it leaves the final set of rollers.
Certain prior art shows the use of conical rollers. That prior art includes U.S. Pat. No. 3,019,475, issued to W. G. Smith, on Feb. 6, 1962. That patent shows a stretching apparatus for stretching a continuous web or sheeting of plastic material, for purposes of creating windshields for automobiles.
Two other U.S. patents, each issued to Ford Motor Company, Gurta et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,885,899 dated May 27, 1975 and Koss et al. U.S. Pat. No. 3,912,440, dated Oct. 14, 1975 teach similar equipment having conical rollers which act on a continuous web of laminated material, also for the production of automobile windshields.
Victor, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,999,926 dated Dec. 28, 1976, provides an apparatus for shaping dough lumps for such purposes as pizza or pie crusts, where the material passes through a first pair of rollers to form an elongated flattened lump which is fed onto a tray which then turns through a 90 degree arc, after which the dough material slides off the tray into the nip of a second pair of rollers from which it immerges having a substantially circular shape.
The purposes of the apparatus of the Victor patent, above, are much the same as the purposes of the apparatus of the present invention. However, that apparatus patent is such that it cannot operate substantially continuously, because it is not possible that a succeeding lump of dough may pass through the first rollers until the rotable tray has regained its first position to receive the rolled dough material and to transfer it to the second set of rollers. Thus, the speed of the Victor equipment may be severely constrained.
Moreover, great care must be taken that the dough material does not rest on or is inadvertently stuck to the transfer tray, thereby slowing down the operation even more because of the necessity for an operator to stop the machine and reach into it and disengage the dough material from the transfer tray.
On the other hand, the other three patents each teach apparatus for stretching web material longitudinally, where it is stretched more at one side than at the other, and the stretching is accomplished by passing the material through the nip of conical rollers.
In contradistinction thereto, the present invention provides a transfer apparatus which has conical rollers, which apparatus may be operated substantially continuously on discrete portions of material to be rolled because there is no necessity to wait for any components of the apparatus to regain an initial starting position, and which possesses all of the other features discussed above.